Speaker: Suzanne O'Brien

Suzanne O’Brien is the author of Life, Love and Transition: Guidance for the End of Life - the recently published guide to achieving a dignified, meaningful death through the hospice experience. Suzanne is also a hospice advocate and motivational speaker.

Suzanne resides in the beautiful Hudson Valley of New York, where she has been an acute oncology and hospice nurse for over 10 years.

Her training also includes a degree in Transpersonal Counseling and Spiritual Ministry from University for Integrative Learning at the Association for the Integration of the Whole Person in Los Alamitos, CA. In addition, she is certified as a Reiki Practitioner from the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY.

Suzanne’s more spiritual and alternative education, combined with her nursing training, sets her apart as a holistic healer and educator. It’s a role she is sharing nationwide as a motivational speaker providing insight and understanding about how families can approach end of life care and death with clarity and dignity.

Top Speaking Topics

End of Life Options – The Hospice Solution

In this inspiring and motivating presentation Suzanne uses her combined 10+-year experience as an acute oncology and hospice nurse to educate and empower individuals about the best end of life options. Suzanne clearly explains the holistic model of hospice care and the multidisciplinary approach it offers to ensure the highest possible end of life quality. Sharing patient stories and discussing the significance of advance directives, living wills and health care proxies, Suzanne brings light to the importance of being educated on treatment options in order to make the most comfortable decisions for you and your family.

A Better Ending – An Ethical and Moral Discussion about Sustaining Life Too Long

Suzanne addresses the common practice of using aggressive treatment during the patients’ final days, largely due to the training of medical professionals whose job it is to keep people alive by every means possible. Presenting the ethical and moral aspects of health care, Suzanne considers how a lack of discussion about illness and death as a society allows for unnecessary, futile and often painful treatments at the end of life. Suzanne’s eye-opening presentation raises many questions about the medical industry today, including the financial motivation of the healthcare community, with firsthand accounts and statistical information that cannot be ignored.